Hugh Jackman: The Man, The Music, The Show - review

Scotland is no stranger when it comes to superheroes. The Avengers have assembled in Edinburgh to deep fry their kebab in Infinity War and turned St. Abbs into New Asgard in Endgame.
The Scots have welcomed the likes of Captain America, Black Widow and Thor with open arms and an Irn Bru and now it does the same to the most famous of X-Men… Wolverine.
For the Tony award-winning, Oscar-nominated Hugh Jackman has chosen Glasgow to play host to the very first performances of The Man, The Music, The Show.

Embarking on a world tour at the age of 50, one might have expected to see Old Man Logan but the audience was treated to The Greatest Showman moving around the stage with the energy of a New Mutant.
This chappie must be drinking from The Fountain of youth because he was tapping those Happy Feet for 2.5 hours.
Opening with The Greatest Show, it is obvious that this Chappie is having the time of his life (not the Dirty Dancing song). His enthusiasm is infectious and it ensured that the capacity crowd at the SSE Hydro was anything but les miserables.

Ably backed up by a band and dancers, plus an rapturous reception for Keala Settle who appeared for This Is Me, Jackman effortlessly moves through his career; from his first job playing Gaston in Beauty and the Beast, Carousel, a performance of You Will Be Found from Dear Evan Hansen featuring a local Glasgow choir before ending act one with a medley from Les Miserables.

The Met Gala took place this week and the theme was camp but I think all the camp was taken by this show as Jackman brought out The Boy from Oz Peter Allen for a spot of audience interaction to kick off the second act, and to his credit, no matter what the Glasgow crowd threw at him, he dealt with it in his stride and in character.

Followed by this, he took a trip down memory lane through some of his favourite movie musicals before launching into a huge dance routine.
And this is a sentence one would never expect to write; there is a moment where Wolverine tap dances to Thunderstruck by AC/DC… and I say that because at the end Jackman is so worked up his facial expression changed to the point I was like “It’s Wolverine” followed by him recreating the famous “Schnick” poses using drumsticks.

The only other actor who I have seen capable of working an entire arena into a frenzy and have them hanging off their every word is The Rock, The Most Electrifying Man In Sports Entertainment. Well, Jackman is certainly the Most Electrifying Man in Musical Theatre entertainment.
As he brought it home with From Now On, the capacity crowd was on their feet giving him a well deserved and earned standing ovation, as this really was... *don't say it, don't say it, don't say it* The Greatest Show!

5 stars

Deadpool 2 - review

Sorry Ant-Man and the Wasp. Your delayed August release in the U.K. means that you have been pipped to the post of "small scale comic relief superhero movie designed to lift your spirits following the tragic events of Infinity War" by the Unicorn-riding, Frozen singing, Merc with the Motormouth Deadpool 2.

(Woah I know what those of you reading this are thinking. What's that about? Calling out an unreleased Marvel Studios movie to praise the efforts of another Marvel movie within a review? That is SO Deadpool. Hang on, did I just mention that this was a review within the review. Breaking the fourth wall? Again, that is SO Deadpool!)

It can be a challenging prospect to write a review about Deadpool 2. Why? There is always a chance that the marketing team at 20th Century Fox (or is it Disney now? I can't keep up. It's as confusing as the X-Men timelines) could use what you say to work for one of their self-deprecating campaigns;

"Deadpool 2 is like an overstuffed chimichanga. Yes, it is tasty, satisfying and value for money at the time and you wolf down every morsel but you could wake up the morning after looking like Josh Brolin in an Instagram video wondering why you did it to yourself"

Or even worse, Ryan Reynolds himself might see it and print out a copy to call you out on your review right in the middle of (the inevitable) Deadpool 3: Dirty Harry.

So is it best to just stick to delivering something in the standard review format? Perhaps using WikiHow's guide to writing a film review?

1. Start with a compelling fact or opinion about the film
This film is the first Deadpool film to feature the number 2 in the title.

2. Give a clear well, established opinion early on
"Deadpool 2 is like an overstuffed chimichanga. Yes, it is tasty, satisfying and value for money at the time and you wolf down every morsel but you could wake up the morning after looking like Josh Brolin in an Instagram video wondering why you did it to yourself" (Oh dammit, see why did you write that? I told you not to earlier on. See above for details!)

3. Write your review
See above and below this line of text.

4. Move beyond obvious plot analysis
In Deadpool 2, our hero must save a kid from Josh Brolin's Thanos Cable, who has travelled back in time to kill the younger version of an evil mutant who is responsible for killing the people that he loves.
If I was Rian Johnson, the writer-director of Looper, a film about a man who must stop the older version of himself who has travelled back in time to kill a kid responsible for murdering the person he loves, I would be calling my intellectual property lawyers about now.

5. Bring your review full circle in the ending
See end of review where Deadpool picks up the young mutant and shows him off like the young lion in the musical number The Circle of Life in The Lion King... say what you want about the rest of the film, turns out Wade Wilson is spot on about Frozen ripping off Yentl for Do You Wanna Build A Snowman? But I digress!

6. Gather basic facts about your movie
Ryan Reynolds is the only actor to appear in all 65 episodes of Canadian TV show Hillside (1990)

7. Take notes while you watch it
"Remember to take the rubbish out when you get home. Recycling collection is tomorrow."
"Need more almond milk because I am a vegan millennial now apparently. When did this happen?"
"This reminds me. I must rewatch Green Lantern at some point"

8. Analyse the mechanics of the movie
There were no mechanics featured in the film. Sadly Jason Statham's The Mechanic also did not appear.

9. Watch it one more time.
Ryan Reynolds and Fox will be happy about that. Good thing I have an Unlimited card!

Okay, let's get serious for a minute. Something that this film cannot do. I mean people complain about the MCU undercutting emotional scenes with humour. This film has a bigger undercut than Brolin's hairstyle as Cable.

Deadpool was a huge success and it worked because of Ryan Reynolds' commitment to the project and the character. He is Wade Wilson in the way that Robert Downey Jr is Tony Stark. A perfect marriage of character and actor. Something that I'm sure Wilson and Reynolds would do if they were allowed.

The sequel makes no apologies from the outset in dialling everything that worked about the first one all the way up to 11 (just like Cable's gun) including pops at Hugh Jackman and Logan for upstaging them, a brief spot of fridging and a Bond-esque opening credit sequence.

Just like Instagram, this film has #NoFilter and absolutely everyone is a target including Marvel Studios, D.C. Comics, Stranger Things, The Goonies et all.

It's not that the film or schtick is tired yet, it's just exhausting. There are SO many jokes that is difficult to remember them all once you have left the theatre which kind of indicates that there wasn't a stand out (or balls out) joke beyond a basic Basic Instinct reference.

That being said is is still a wild, enjoyable ride for even if not all the jokes land, it doesn't matter because there is another right behind it. In fact, it is probably up there with Airplane for its joke-per-minute ratio.

The only major disappointment (beyond the Fridging of a major character which initially could have been a parody of that writing trope but sadly wasn't) was the over-reliance on CGI in the fight scenes (to the point where Deadpool cues one up with "Big CGI fight time") which meant that "one of the guys who killed John Wick's dog" is unable to truly show off what he can do with an action sequence. I guess we have to wait for the Fast & Furious spin-off with The Rock and The Stath. Speaking of which, wasn't it odd that with all the mention of "family" in the film that there were no references to those movies?
So bringing it full circle jerk. Like a superhero landing on the knees, Deadpool sticks to what he knows and delivers a hilarious, enjoyable, diverting comic book movie. Even if it is not one that will subvert the genre like the original.
Like Deadpool himself, as long as there are other superhero movies to take the piss out of, this is going to be one franchise that won't die and is likely to run and run and run just like Wade's mouth.

3 stars

X-Men: Days Of Future Past - review

If I were to try and sum up the plot for X-Men: Days Of Future Past in one paragraph, I might say that Wolverine is sent back in time to persuade Charles Xavier and Magneto to come together to stop Mystique killing Bolivar Trask which prompts the creation of the Sentinel program which ultimately wipes out mutant kind in the future.

Follow that? No? Doesn't matter. You could try watching all the X-Men films, including the Wolverine ones, and all the end credits stings to re-familiarise yourself with the storyline and characters but it might just end up creating more questions than answers.

An action-packed opening sequence in the future which introduces us to some new and familiar faces under attack from sentinels poses such nerdy questions like "How has Wolverine got his adamantium claws back?", "How the hell is Professor X alive and looking like himself?", "Kitty Pryde has always been able to walk through walls but how can she now send people back through time?".

But before we are given time to think too hard about these questions, Bryan Singer quickly sends Wolverine back through time and presents the audience with a shot of Hugh Jackman's naked arse in order to distract us.

As much as this is the X-Men version of The Terminator storyline where someone is sent back in them to prevent the creation of robotic creatures that will wipe out an entire race, it is also paralleled with Singer's return.

Having left the franchise after X2 in order to make Superman Returns, he returns to a storyline where he uses the characters developed in First Class to retcon the universe to alter events that he wasn't happy with in X3: The Last Stand which mishandled The Dark Phoenix saga among other things, effectively giving him a clean slate to work with in the future in The Age Of Apocalypse (which I can't help but sing to the tune of Age of Aquarius).

But you can't make people excited for the future unless they enjoy the current film (take note makers of Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice).

Luckily this instalment is the most enjoyable since X2 from the opening attack which highlights the future sentinels and new mutants including Blink whose power of creating temporary portals is used to terrific visual effect or the sequence where Quicksilver infiltrates the Pentagon to break out Magneto with the best use of bullet-time since The Matrix.

Despite switching between the two time frames and featuring as many characters as you would find in a tweet, the main focus of the plot is the younger versions of Charles and Eric, who are further at odds than when we last saw them in First Class.

James McAvoy really gets to stretch his acting legs (pun intended) with the biggest character arc, starting as a drunk, disillusioned man who has given up his powers in exchange for the use of his legs (again not fully explained), completely uninterested in Wolverine's "future-shite" but must grow into the man who eventually becomes Patrick Stewart's calm, noble Professor X (with whom he shares a geek-tastic time-bending head-to-head).

The all-action climax helps to start reassembling the jigsaw pieces together to head towards the world already established in X-Men and X2 and it will be interesting to see if the next instalments feature the younger or older X-Men as this almost feels like a passing of the torch between casts.

An X-Cellent ensemble that successfully mutates between post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi and funky seventies blockbuster with the overall result being a bright future for the franchise.

If it was sitting an X-am, this would get a Days Of Future Pass.

4 stars